5 Things Singapore needs to learn from Brexit

TL;DR – To learn from your own mistakes, that’s foolish. The wise man learns from other people’s mistakes.

It’s official. The pundits got it wrong. The Leave campaign won.

In all likelihood, UK will leave the European Union. Most experts predict that Brexit will prove economically calamitous to UK, with knock-on effects to EU and the rest of the world. So why did the Brits decide to leave? Are they masochistic and want to bring more suffering upon themselves? Or were they stupid and irrational?

It is important to note that not all of UK want to leave the European Union. Northern Ireland and Scotland didn’t. London, Bristol, and a few of the more affluent areas of England wanted to stay. Many of the youths wanted to stay. So what happened?

Many things have been written about Brexit and why it’s happening. BBC gave eight reasons. Out of the eight, these five hold important lessons for Singapore:

Brexit economic warnings backfired. Many Brits discounted the advice of experts. This isn’t just a revolt against the establishment. It suggested far more people felt left behind and untouched by the economic benefits of five decades of EU involvement being trumpeted.

£350m NHS claim gets traction. The assertion that leaving the EU would free up £350m a week extra to spend on the NHS is the kind of political slogan that campaigns dream of: striking, easy to understand and attractive to voters of different ages and political persuasions.

Excessive immigration was a great bogeyman. Concerns about levels of migration into the UK over the past 10 years, their impact on society, and what might happen in the next 20 years were more widely felt and ran even deeper than people had suspected.

Older (and poorer) voters supported Brexit in droves. It was older voters which won it for Leave – particularly in the south, south-west, Midlands and the north east.

Brits stopped listening to David Cameron. Unsuited to winning over Labour supporters, the prime minister was not able to persuade enough floating voters to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Lesson 1: Fear-mongering can backfire

Much of Singapore’s politics is about fear-mongering. During the General Election, PAP told us about the terrible things that would happen if the opposition wins more seats or, worse, forms the government. The opposition told us of the dire future we had in store if the PAP remained in power. Even as recent as the Bukit Batok by-election, we had Chee Soon Juan telling us of the doom and gloom we were heading in to should the PAP remain unchallenged.

Brexit has shown us that too much fear-mongering will backfire. I certainly look forward to more politics of hope than of fear. Instead of scaring us into supporting you, convince us why voting for you will bring us a better, brighter future.

Lesson 2. Lies work

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), who was one of the main proponents of Brexit kept harping on how leaving the EU would free up all that money to fund the National Health System. But it turned out that that was a lie.

Or as he would put it… a mistake. Now we know of many politicians in Singapore who make claims about how they would spend more money on various national social programs if they were voted in. How many of those claims can stand up to scrutiny? Or would the majority of those end up being like Nigel’s “mistakes”?

We need to guard against such populist politics. Lest we be led to make the wrong decisions based on despicable lies.

Lesson 3: Us vs Them is real

Remember the furor that the “Population White Paper” caused? It was caused by the thought of having more foreigners in our midst. The idea that there will be more foreigners in Singapore than “true blue born and bred Singaporeans” was so abhorrent to us. Websites like The Real Singapore rode on the wave of the rejection of the influx of foreigners. This isn’t an issue that will go away any time soon. Will it be the main driving force that determines how Singaporeans will vote in the next general election? Perhaps.

The PAP government is aware of this. It has taken steps to reduce the influx of foreigners. It has put in measures to be more selective in who to allow in. Is it enough? Some would argue it’s not. But one thing’s for sure. In today’s globalised world, where borders are so porous, being xenophobic is plain stupidity. Have we found the right balance? I think it’s still work in progress.

Lesson 4: Rich vs the Not so Rich (and the Poor)

The economic benefits of being in the EU weren’t equally distributed. Many have suggested that it was this inequality, and the lack of income security and social protection that resulted in the Brexit. Donald Low, in a Facebook post said this:

“I suspect this is what happens when older people lack income security and adequate social protection. Baby bombers, unlike the generation of older people before them, are less likely to feel that they owe anything to the next generation, and are less willing to make sacrifices for the young.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that the two western countries where populism in the form of anti-immigrant and anti-foreign sentiment has seen the most troubling resurgence in the past year – the US and Britain – are also the two with the least adequate pension and social security systems? When people feel insecure, they tend to find scapegoats among foreigners.”

In Singapore, the economic benefits of Singapore’s development in the last decade have been very unequally shared. There is the impression that there is a growing class of people who will be shut out from the opportunities of the economic restructuring that comes as a result of the fourth industrial revolution.

As Professor Tyler Cowen of George Mason University puts it: “Average is Over.” Prof Cowen describes a future economy stripped of middle-skilled jobs and broad-based prosperity, while a “cognitive elite” of 10-15 per cent of the population prosper.

Will this mean that Singapore is also prone to making irrational political decisions like the Brits? Quite likely. Does this make Singaporeans more likely to fall prey to populistic demagogues? Possibly so.

Perhaps then it’s important that as we restructure our economy, we need to seriously consider being more aggressive in the way we redistribute our wealth. To do that, we need great social trust and social capital. We need to be truly convinced that we, all Singaporeans, are in this together. We need a sense of togetherness as strong as the Nordic countries. Do we have that?

I don’t think so. They have had centuries fighting against the elements to build that social capital. We haven’t. I hope we can quickly get there. Otherwise the divide between the haves and have-nots may just rip our society asunder.

Lesson 5: Politics is about convincing people emotionally too

There may have been when the PAP could have gotten away with saying: “Hey trust us. We have your best interest at heart. If we do things that seem painful now, please bear with us. The benefits will come.” I think that time is long gone. For whatever reasons (including those in Lesson 4 above), there are more Singaporeans now who are more vocal in displaying their distrust of the PAP government. They want the PAP government to explain themselves more.

It’s not enough for the government to ask Singaporeans to trust that whatever decision they make is the best possible option. Or that if something is not done, there must be good reasons why it was not done. It’s not enough for the PAP to ask us to be rational. Politics isn’t just about being rational.

“People vote in ways different from our own. The “rational and intellectual” position is Bremain and I think many people would have assumed that the average Briton would be smart and vote accordingly. However, Brexit supporters are not driven just by the intellectual calculus but have cast their votes based on how their personal lives may have been affected by the EU. They either saw no benefits from staying in or associated their own relative decline and poverty as being a result of the EU.

If we are to appreciate and change mind sets, it is important for us to understand how people, even with incomprehensible positions (see Trump, Donald J.) think and feel and then seek to find ways to address their concerns. Brushing them aside means that we may well be ignoring the silent majority, as we often discover in Singapore elections. “

Hopefully Singapore learns these lessons well

Someone wise I know once told me: To learn from your own mistakes, that’s foolish. The wise man learns from other people’s mistakes.

I hope Singapore, particularly our politicians, are wise. I hope we learn from the mistakes that UK has made in this whole Brexit debacle. I am cautiously optimistic that we can. At least one of our political leaders seemed to have gotten it.

As DPM Tharman said:

“As politics gets fragmented, the political extremes will gain appeal. We do not know where this will lead to, but it cannot mean anything good. But to tackle it, the politics of the centre must stay connected to the challenges that ordinary people face – and address their need for jobs and security, and a balance in immigration that preserves a sense of identity. Tackling this without turning inward, and weakening jobs and society further, is the central challenge everywhere.”

Author Jake Koh

Join the discussion 10 Comments

As a Briton who voted for Leave and Labour< ,em> in GE 2015, kindly allow me to disabuse you of some of the false notions and misconceptions you have in there:

1. Fearmongering
No particular comment. There have been negative views on both sides, but it would be utterly foolish to think a political campaign can be entirely positive.

2. Lies work
You don’t seem to realise that there were actually three movements pushing for Leave:

the Vote Leave campaign which was given the official campaign designation and led by Tory politicians like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove; Leave EU and Grassroots OUT!, of which Nigel Farage was a part. The NHS claim was made by the Vote Leave campaign, of which Nigel Farage had absolutely no part of, was shut out of from the very beginning and was treated very frostily by throughout the whole campaign. To allege that Mr Farage “lied” or “made a mistake” is utterly wrong, because he never made that claim. The only times he has mentioned the NHS is the strain that non-tax-contributing migrants would put on it. This man has been campaigning for British independence from an increasingly politicalised economic bloc since the late 1990s, and if you had looked a little bit deeper at his history, you might have seen that he is one of the most honest politicians in the UK, and I say this as a man who has voted Labour for all his life (although that might change at the next GE thanks to the disgraceful behaviour of Labour towards its older voters in this referendum).

I am, however, not surprised at you repeating this misconception, as you appear to have bought into narrative spun by the dishonest and completely untrustworthy BBC and Huffington Post: that Leave voters are regretting their decision (even though latest surveys show that only 4% consider it a bad one, see https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/746820394217259008), and that pro-Brexit politicians are going to stop discussions on how to go forward now that they’ve won.

Lesson 3
I didn’t vote Leave because of immigration. I voted Leave because I want British sovereignty in laws and trade returned. Britain, one of the oldest and greatest law-making countries will now have most influence in the country, as opposed to the European Court of Justice. The EU has served to benefit big businesses: red tape regulation led small to medium-sized businesses having great difficulty in exporting efficiently; and harsh EU policies (i.e. fishing quotas) worked to the detriment of the working classes of England. Britain had appealed 72 times to the EU Commission about EU legislation being ineffective/inefficient in Britain, and each and every single time, it was rejected out of hand!

For an equivalent, consider that if after independence, Singapore was invited to a Common Market with Malaysia and Indonesia, but in return, they would extend their economic power over Singapore’s trade and industrial sectors, then said that a common Shariah law would override any judicial decisions of Singaporean courts. Now imagine if they did this for 43 years to your country, all the while claiming it is for greater solidarity in the Southeast Asian region. Do you think that is acceptable? You can deride this point all you want, but do not underestimate the average Briton’s desire for limited government and for independence from foreign tyrants.

You also live in very comfortable cosmopolitan Singapore. You have not seen mid-size towns in England devastated by the effect of migrant workers. And let me stop you right there before you sneer at this dumb Briton for “being afraid of unqualified foreigners taking your job”. I have personally seen neighbours and friends lose their jobs in the industrial sector thanks to migrants who were willing to do the same amount of work for much less. I have seen steel mills and textile factories having to shift their operations into cheaper regions thanks to being unable to afford to pay British workers, thus devastating entire villages and towns that cannot afford to move with them. Do not underestimate the effect of uncontrolled immigration on the average man, and do not be so quick to run to accusations of “racism” and “xenophobia”.

Lesson 4
Was your entire thing to take away from this is: “we need more wealth redistribution”? Please understand that this wasn’t about money or wealth trickling down, but about how the EU has run ram-shod over British laws and industry. It’s not about who gets the money; it’s about Britain not being able to get the money in the first place.

Older voters like myself have seen the effect of what the EU has done to our fishing, manufacturing and textile industries. Jobs have been lost, livelihoods have been crushed, and families have been scattered. Poorer voters didn’t vote Leave because they wanted a bigger slice of the pie; they voted Leave because they wanted the pie slice that was Britain’s back in her hands!

Also, you said “We need a sense of togetherness as strong as the Nordic countries.” Do you know what underpins that solidarity? It is cultural and ethnic homogeneity, which I’m sure to a cosmopolitan fellow as yourself sounds like a most foul blasphemy. But this is human nature we’re talking about: people are more open to sharing with people of the in-group. This is not racism – I am not suggesting any one race is better or worse than the other, but to think that you can dump an entirely new group into a larger population with no feelings of resentment or anger growing is at best naïve and at worst evil.

Lesson 5
Emotions play an important part in politics, but to dismiss Brexit as a purely emotional and incomprehensible decision is a grave and most personal insult against me and the 17 million other Britons who voted Leave, many of whom are as highly-educated as the “experts” that Remain touted from the beginning. To dismiss the entire Vote Leave campaign as “populist” and “demagoguery” is also an interesting indictment against democracy. Why do you consider listening to the populace as a democratically elected leader to be a bad thing? Why do you consider speaking to the people to be a bad thing?

I don’t expect you to agree with what I’ve said, and I certainly don’t expect you to understand some of what I’ve said. This whole referendum is a very British thing at its very core, and all the economic and globalist arguments in the world will never be able to fully dissect it.

Hi Riki,
Thanks for taking the time to share that long comment! I think it’s great to hear directly from one of the #Brexit supporters. Fascinating as it was to read your thoughts and views, I think your arguments run parallel to the original blogpost, not on the same path at all. The author did not profess to know-all about UK and Brexit, he was just drawing possible lessons Singapore can learn from a BBC article on Brexit.

Pie back in the hands but at what cost? Not interested in an argument but an evidence based discussion on why you would feel the overall result would be better for the British and the (for now United) Kingdom. The vast majority of media reports is on “bregret”, buyer’s remorse, a flippant or less than erudite electorate, flaky Politicians and how the EU actually has benefited the UK. Unless you are saying these are false, for the layman looking in, this seems like the majority who voted leave were content to let their own misfortune and discontent flush the prospects for future generations down the toilet.

Bang the drums on it being uniquely British and consistent with democracy to listen to the majority of voters all you want (a million flies can’t be wrong). The only way the typical Singaporean would dissect it is pragmatism. The GBP got pummelled, the economic future is uncertain, Scotland wants out (anyone thought of that?), and irrelevance (or not) is but a roll of a dice away. I think that’s what the article is on about. How not to royally *rooster* it up at the next elections. The proof is in the pudding of course, and at this juncture the evidence only points one way.

[…] changes that are happening in every aspect of our lives and in practically every country. Think Brexit, think Trump, and yes, think of how the relationship between Singapore and China has turned from […]

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